Partitioning processes across clusters by process type to optimize use of cluster specific configurations

ABSTRACT

A system and method for virtualization and cloud security are disclosed. According to one embodiment, a system comprises a first multi-core processing cluster and a second multi-core processing cluster in communication with a network interface card and software instructions. When the software instructions are executed by the second multi-core processing cluster they cause the second multi-core processing cluster to receive a request for a service, create a new or invoke an existing virtual machine to service the request, and return a desired result indicative of successful completion of the service to the first multi-core processing cluster.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is a continuation application of U.S. patentapplication Ser. No. 13/732,143, filed on Dec. 31, 2012, which is acontinuation-in-part of PCT Patent Application No. PCT/US2011/042866,having an International Filing Date of Jul. 1, 2011, which claims thebenefit of priority to U.S. Provisional Application No. 61/360,658,filed on Jul. 1, 2010, which are all hereby incorporated by reference.

FIELD

The present methods and system relate to computer systems, and moreparticularly, to process allocation among processor clusters.

BACKGROUND

Virtualization, in computing, is the creation of a virtual (rather thanactual) version of something, such as a hardware platform, an operatingsystem, a storage device or network resources. Virtualization is part ofan overall trend in enterprise IT that includes autonomic computing, ascenario in which the IT environment will be able to manage itself basedon perceived activity, and utility computing, in which computerprocessing power is seen as a utility that clients can pay for only asneeded. The usual goal of virtualization is to centralize administrativetasks while improving scalability and workloads.

The aggregation of a large number of users using high speed personalcomputers, smart phones, tablet computers and intelligent mobile devicessignificantly increases required network packet processing performancein a non-virtualized and virtualized server of data center environment.Processing on each complicated packet from various mobile devices isnecessary to differentiate and secure services. Green computing isbecoming essential to limit power consumption. Also, shortenedinfrastructure deployment schedules can result in faster revenuegeneration.

Recent technology improvements can achieve the expected level ofperformance while providing a scalable solution with unrivalledperformance in integration and power consumption ratio. Some of thoseincluded multi-core CPUs and hardware industry

standards such as the AMC standard, the PCI Express standard, theAdvanced TCA standard, and the Blade Center standard.

High performance software packet processing is typically required toefficiently implement the different protocols and ensure an adequatequality of service. Most advanced networks have adopted a class-basedquality of service concept so they require per-packet processing fordifferentiating between packet services.

Traffic between a data center and remote users is often encrypted usingIPSec and requires the assistance of hardware crypto engines. Multi-coretechnology provides necessary processing capabilities and offers a highlevel of integration with lower power consumption required by advancednetworks. However, software design complexities persist, makingdevelopment and integration difficult. The result is a hindrance todeployment of multi-core based solutions.

With virtualization and cloud computing gradually becoming more and morepopular, existing servers can be logically grouped into a single, largepool of available resources. Aggregating the capacity of these devicesinto a single pool of available resources enables efficient utilizationof servers which results in a related reduction in both capital andoperational expenses. However, virtualization leaves traditional networksecurity measures inadequate to protect against the emerging securitythreats in the virtual environment. This is due to a lack of majorprotection in the data path between servers and storage subsystems. Thelack of protection prevents enterprises from experiencing the fullbenefits of a major data center transformation.

While cloud computing is often seen as increasing security risks andintroducing new threat vectors, it also presents an exciting opportunityto improve security. Characteristics of clouds such as standardization,automation and increased visibility into the infrastructure candramatically boost security levels. Running computing services inisolated domains, providing default encryption of data in motion and atrest, and controlling data through virtual storage have all becomeactivities that can improve accountability and reduce the loss of data.In addition, automated provisioning and reclamation of hardened run-timeimages can reduce the attack surface and improve forensics.

SUMMARY

A system and method for virtualization and cloud security are disclosed.According to one embodiment, a system comprises a first multitaskingmulti-core processing cluster and a second real-time based identical ornon-identical multi-core processing cluster in communication withnetwork interface cards or via, for example, a PCI-e backplane andsoftware instructions and interface mechanisms. When the softwareinstructions are executed by the second multi-core processing clusterthey cause the second multi-core processing cluster to receive a requestfor a service, create a new or invoke an existing software function toservice the request, and return a desired result indicative ofsuccessful completion of the service to the first multi-core processingcluster.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The accompanying drawings, which are included as part of the presentspecification, illustrate the presently preferred embodiment and,together with the general description given above and the detaileddescription of the preferred embodiment given below, serve to explainand teach the principles described herein.

FIG. 1 illustrates an exemplary system level layout for use with thepresent system, according to one embodiment.

FIG. 2 illustrates an exemplary system level layout including avirtualization and cloud security architecture for use with the presentsystem, according to one embodiment.

FIG. 3 illustrates an exemplary software infrastructure for use with thepresent system, according to one embodiment.

FIG. 4 illustrates an exemplary hardware infrastructure for use with thepresent system, according to one embodiment.

FIG. 5 illustrates an exemplary hardware infrastructure implementationfor use with the present system, according to one embodiment.

FIG. 6 illustrates an exemplary system level layout with virtualizationsupport for use with the present system, according to one embodiment.

It should be noted that the figures are not necessarily drawn to scaleand that elements of similar structures or functions are generallyrepresented by like reference numerals for illustrative purposesthroughout the figures. It also should be noted that the figures areonly intended to facilitate the description of the various embodimentsdescribed herein. The figures do not describe every aspect of theteachings disclosed herein and do not limit the scope of the claims.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

A system and method for virtualization and cloud security are disclosed.According to one embodiment, FIG. 1 illustrates a system (101)comprising a first multi-core processing cluster (108), which iscontrolled by multi-tasking OS (104) in communication with a networkinterface cards (110) or via PCI-e backplane (109) and softwareinstructions(105)to the system (102) through interface. When thesoftware instructions (105) are executed by the second non-identical oridentical multi-core processing cluster (211) inside of system (102),which is controlled by real time operating system RTOS (213) inside ofsystem (102), they cause the second non-identical or identicalmulti-core processing cluster (211) to receive a request for a service,create a new or invoke an existing software functions to service therequest, and return a desired result through software instructions (107)and interface (110) or (109) indicative of successful completion of theservice to the first multi-core processing cluster.

According to one embodiment, the present system provides an efficientimplementation of fast path packet processing in control/data plane SW(212) to take advantage of the performance benefits provided bymulti-core multiprocessing cluster (211). The present system includes acomplete, comprehensive, and ready to use set of networking featuresincluding VLAN, Link Aggregation, GRE encapsulation, GTP and IP over IPtunneling, Layer 3 forwarding with virtual routing management, routingand virtual routing, Per Packet QoS (Quality-of-Service) and Filtering(ACLs) software functions in control/data plane SW (212), IPSec, SVTI,IKEv1 and IKEv2 for security functions in security SW (215). A moredetailed description of SW(212)and SW(215) follows below.

According to one embodiment, the present system is fully integrated witha control/data plane SW (212) of operating system RTOS (213) for maximumreuse of software, simplified integration and hiding of multi-coredesign complexities. The present system (102)runs on multi-coreplatforms (211) with unified high-level APIs for interfacing withbuilt-in services and functions in software (SW)(212) and hardware (HW)accelerators such as crypto engines or packet processing engines inmulti-core cluster (211) and scales over different multi-corearchitectures, identical or non-identical as multi-core cluster (211)including low cost high volume hardware form factor, like PCI-e or ATCAconfigurations for enterprises and network equipment in data centers.The present system provides an open architecture to ease integration.

According to one embodiment, one aspect of the present system includesoffloading network packet processing into control/data plane softwarestack SW (212) from application server (201) in a data center. Yetanother aspect of the present system includes offloading additionalsecurity software stacks SW (215) to support security and otherapplication functions from application server in data center. The thirdparty UTM (Unified Threat Management) or Enterprise Security stacks canbe integrated and being run on SW (215). The description of UTM andEnterprise security stacks are explained below.

According to one embodiment, a security software stack, UTM (UnifiedThreat Management) or Enterprise Security Stack is provided by thirdparty vendors. In addition to security software stacks running on thesystem (102) transparently, there are security related functions thatcan be accelerated by a multi-core processing cluster (211) contained ina hardware blade described below.

According to one embodiment, another aspect of the present systemincludes providing virtualization security. A virtualization securityplatform, including combination of hardware multi-core cluster (211) andsoftware platform, built-in on top of the hardware blades furtherdescribed below, is the foundation of cloud computing security platformand includes additional software virtual machines running in system tooffload network packet processing and security virtual machines from avirtualized server of system (101) into (102). The network packetprocessing and security functions are then, instead, handled by packetprocessing software virtual machines and security software virtualmachines as part of the present system, according to one embodiment.

Virtualization or non-virtualization security software or packetprocessing software is downloaded from a remote server onto an existinguser's system through secured links and remote call centers for existingcustomers. For new users, it is preinstalled and delivered withaccompanying hardware. Once the software is loaded upon initial powerup, the customers' applications are downloaded on top of software onvarious hardware modules depending on the security applications.

The systems described herein might provide for integration of virtualand physical real time multi-core clusters systems into physical serveror server virtualization environment, virtual machine awareness,implementation of security policies on various virtual machine levels ornon-virtualized system levels, visibility and control of virtualmachines, security and packet processing provided by a combination ofvirtualized software appliances and non-virtualized security softwareand packet processing software, end-point data protection at level ofstandard computer server or host, which is the source of datageneration, acceleration of network traffic and security functions, opensoftware framework for third party security software vendors,elimination of host performance penalties, and/or data security.

The present system includes distributed real-time computing capabilitiesintegrated in a standard server platform. Distributed real timecomputing clusters, expanded from vertically and horizontally accordingto one embodiment, can be thought of as server farms, which haveheterogeneous multi-core processing clusters, and server farm resourcescan be increased on-demand when workloads are increased. Server farmresources can be quickly activated, deactivated, upgraded or deployed.

Performance scalability of the present system is two dimensional:horizontal and vertical. The same or identical multi-core clusterfunction can be expanded vertically by a homogeneous architecture, anddifferent or non-identical multi-core function can be expandedhorizontal by heterogeneous architecture. Homogeneous and heterogeneousarchitectures are explained below in greater detail.

The present system provides for power consumption optimization. Anapplication load driven approach provides the best power consumptionutilization. Resources are enabled and disabled based on demand tofollow a green energy policy.

A software programming model of the present system provides that allexisting applications are not required to be rewritten and that allemerging new applications can be running transparently by using exitingAPIs (application programming interface) call from existing operatingsystems or expanded APIs call from library supplied by third partysoftware vendors

FIG. 1 illustrates an exemplary system level layout for use with thepresent system, according to one embodiment. An application server (101)is running a server application (103). The application server (101) hasan multitasking operating system (OS) (104), which can be fromcommercial products like Windows, Linux and Unix from different vendors,drivers 106, which are used to communicate between (OS) (104) andnetwork interface cards (NIC) (110) and other hardware resources,middleware sockets (107) and middleware agents (105). The applicationserver (101) is running a multi-core cluster (108) for serverapplication (103), which requires packet processing or security softwareservices, and communicates with a NIC (110) or via PCI-e (PCI Express)backplane (109). The NICs 110 provide network 111 access. The middlewaresockets (107) and agents (105) are in communication with avirtualization and cloud security system (102) according to theembodiments disclosed herein.

FIG. 2 illustrates an exemplary system level layout includingvirtualization and cloud security architecture for use with the presentsystem, according to one embodiment. An application server (201) isrunning a server application (203). The application server 201 has anoperating system (OS) 204 as described above can be any one ofcommercial Windows, Linux and Unix multitasking operating system,drivers (206), middleware sockets (207) and middleware agents (205). Theapplication server (201) is running a multi-core cluster (208) forserver applications. The application server (201) when requires packingprocessing and security functions, those requests are intercepted andserviced by a virtualization and cloud security system (VCSS) (202). Theservices can communicate through middleware sockets (207) and agents(205). The middleware sockets (207) and agents (205) are incommunication with the virtualization and cloud security system (VCSS)202 according to the embodiments disclosed herein. The VCSS 202,according to one embodiment, includes a hardware blade having amulti-core processing cluster (211) plugged into the PCI-e backplane(209), and a minimal software stack including network socket agents(214), a real-time operating system (213), and a control/data planesoftware stack (212). The VCSS 202 can also include security softwaresupport (215) and application layer server agents (216). Middlewaresockets (207) and agents (205) can also communicate with applicationserver agents (216) regarding service requests. The application serveragents (216) communicate with the RTOS (213), control/data softwarestack (212) and network socket agent (214) to serve the request throughHW/multi-core processing cluster through network interface cards (NIC)210 or via PCI-e backplane (209). The network interface card (NIC) 210provides network (217) access. A more detailed description of thecontrol/data plane software stack (212) and security software stack(215) follows below.

Hardware (HW) blade/multi-core cluster (211) provides hardware for thedevelopment of an intelligent virtualization and cloud n and securitysystem, which includes hardware and software, that supports the growingdemand for intelligent network/security acceleration and applicationoffload for converged datacenter applications such as network, storage,security, deep packet inspection (DPI), firewall, WAN Optimization, andapplication delivery (ADC) computing. HW/multi-core cluster 211comprises a multi-core processor cluster (e.g., Freescale P4080QorIQ),DDR memory, flash memory, 10 Gb or 1 Gb network interfaces, mini SD/MMCcard slot, a USB port, a serial console port, and a battery backed RTC.Software configuring the hardware includes a real time OS (213), i.e.,real-time Linux and driver under Linux to control the hardware blocksand functions.

The multi-core cluster with security and network packet processinghardware acceleration unit in the multi-core cluster, in general, canhandle appropriate functions for implementation of DPI/DDI (deep packetinspection/deep data inspection). In addition, acceleration can handleprotocol processing, for example, including Ethernet, iSCSI, FC, FCoE,HTTP, SIP, and SNMP; content format includes XML, HTML/JavaScript; andpattern match includes IPS pattern and virus patterns. A more detaileddescription of security software (215) further follows below.

Other embodiments of the HW/multi-core cluster can include a differentmulti-core cluster, such as one from Cavium Networks, Netlogic andTilera, for example, to accelerate other emerging functions. Forexample, the Cavium Networks Nitrox family aids in implementing othersecurity measures and the Tilera GX family aids in implementingmultimedia streaming and compression/decompression applications. Whilethe depicted embodiment includes the PCI-e form factor, ATCA and bladecenter and other form factors can be used without departing from thespirit of the present system.

A real-time operating system (RTOS) (213) is an operating system (OS)intended to serve real-time application requests. A key characteristicof a RTOS is the level of its consistency concerning the amount of timeit takes to accept and complete an application's task; the variabilityis jitter. A hard real-time operating system has less jitter than a softreal-time operating system. The chief design goal is not highthroughput, but rather a guarantee of a soft or hard performancecategory. A RTOS that can usually or generally meet a deadline is a softreal-time OS, but if it can meet a deadline deterministically it is ahard real-time OS.

A real-time OS has an advanced algorithm for scheduling. Schedulerflexibility enables a wider, computer-system orchestration of processpriorities, but a real-time OS is more frequently dedicated to a narrowset of applications. Key factors in a real-time OS are minimal interruptlatency and minimal thread switching latency. However, a real-time OS isvalued more for how quickly or how predictably it can respond than forthe amount of work it can perform in a given period of time. Examples ofcommercial real time OS include VxWorks and Linux from Windriver (Intelcompany) or Linux from Enea.

According to one embodiment, security software stack (215) comprisesvarious software functions, with Table 1 illustrating examples. Table 1provides descriptions for the modules.

TABLE 1 Software Function Description Stateful Firewall with NATControlled access to network resources. Network address translation.IPSec VPN Confidentiality, Authentication and Integrity for trafficbetween networks. Secure Remote Access. SSLVPN Secure Remote Accessthrough a browser IDS and IPS Detect and prevent intrusions at L4-L7 andapplication level Application Traffic Throttling Detect and throttleless-priority application traffic (e.g., P2P, IM) Network Anti-VirusStop virus infected payloads and malware from crossing the perimeter(e.g., emails, HTTP, FTP) Application Firewall (HTTP/SIP) Stopattacks/intrusions using deep data inspection of HTTP/SSL/compressedpayloads L4-L7 Load Balancer (ADC) Distribute load across multipleservers. Traffic Policing & Shaping Enforce QoS policies onnetwork/application traffic Virtualization (Data Center) Supportmultiple virtual security appliances within single hardware. Instancesmapped to customers.

Examples include stateful firewall with NAT (network addresstranslation), IPSec VPN, SSLVPN, IDS (intrusion detection system) andIPS (intrusion prevention system), Application Traffic Throttling,Anti-Virus and Anti-Spyware, Application Firewall(HTTP and SIP), andpacket processing functions in SW(212) and network agents (214)comprises L4-L7 load balancer, traffic policing and shaping,virtualization and cloud computing support, and support for webservices, mobile devices, and social networking.

There are many third party commercial security software, for example,like Check Point Software Technologies and Trend Micro, can leverage notonly the full security stack be accelerated by HW (211), control/dataplane software (212), security software stack (215) and the rest offunction blocks (215), (216), (214) but also seamlessly are integratedinto (201) to protect the security measurements against anyvulnerabilities and traffics in and out to system (201).

According to one embodiment, hardware acceleration of the security hasdeep packet inspection/deep data inspection (DDP/DDI). DDP/DDI enablesincreased deployment of advanced security functionality in system (102)with existing infrastructure without incurring new costs.

Application layer server agents (216) serve the different applicationswhich are sent by the application client agents (205) and (207) to theapplication server agents (216) on behalf of application server (201) toserve those requests. The application layer server agent (216) is usedby the system 102 to perform new advanced security functions which willbe emerged in the future. In addition, the new real time intensivetasks, functions or services can be served by system 102 on the behalfof application server 101 to serve those requests. Once the services arerequested, the application server system (201) can activate and transferthrough network interface (210) or PCI-e (209) through control frommiddleware client agents (205) and middleware sockets (207) toapplication layer server agents (216) to serve on behalf of applicationserver 201 under services from RCM application (302) in RCM softwareinfrastructure 301 defined as follows. Once the new applications (302)require services, the new applications will be delivered to the applayer server agent (216) via the interface based on the handshakingmechanism defined in between (205) and (216) and return a desired resultthrough software instructions (207) and interface (210) or (209)indicative of successful completion of the service to the firstmulti-core processing cluster.

FIG. 3 illustrates an exemplary software infrastructure expanded from(203), (204), (205), (206) and (207) for use with the present system,according to one embodiment. An exemplary software infrastructure 301includes support for rich content media (RCM) applications 302. The richcontent media applications 302 can include security, video, imaging,audio and any combination of media(examples described herein) andembodiments described herein. The infrastructure 301 includesinter-processor communications 303 and support of various operatingsystems 304. The infrastructure 301 includes RCM framework 305, genericAPIs 306, support for various codecs (compression/decompression) andlibrary expansion 307, a system framework 308 and a data framework 309.

Application framework 302 can interface to any rich content multimediaapplications or software services (SOA) from various sources throughAPIs (application programming interface). Applications can be expandedfrom one or more groups including network packet processing, security,security decryption/encryption, video compression/decompression, audiocompression/decompression, imaging compression/decompression defined astext, audio, or video and graphics with a combination of decode andencode for remote or local sources. Encode in this case is compressiontechnology and decode is decompression technology. The content sourcecan be from local devices run in the server, PC or other mobile device.The content source can be remote through a LAN, WAN run from servers,web servers, application servers, data base servers in data center, orany cloud computing applications through internet access.

Newer applications, e.g., pattern recognition, can be expanded from thebasic text, audio, video and imaging to run local or remote with specialalgorithms to encode and decode. In other words, the applicationframework 302 can be expanded to support the pattern recognitionapplications with special algorithms to compress and decompress fromlocal servers, PCs or mobile devices or from remote cloud computingresources from internet remotely.

Inter-processor communication 303 occurs over multi-core clusters,operating systems, system interconnects and hypervisors. Inter-processorcommunication 303 module resides on each multi-core cluster can be usedas messages communication among all different multi-core clustersidentical or non-identical. Highlights of 303 include communications(IPC) through distributed messaging passing; OS, platform andinterconnect independent; transparency to system scale and reconfigurewithout modifying codes; multiple producers and consumers; distributedinter-processing communication technology; messages based protocol ordata centric distributed data services; transparent application toapplication connection; reliable delivery communication model; operatingsystem independent (Windows, Linux and Unix); hardware platformindependent (RISC, DSP or others).

An exemplary embodiment includes DDS as explained below forinter-processor communication. Communication standard data distributionservice (DDS), enables system scalability that can support a spectrum ofcommunication requirements, from peer to peer to vast swarms of fixedand mobile devices that have intermittent and highly variablecommunications profiles.

The DDS standard is particularly well-suited to distributing real-timedata for logging as well as for general distributed applicationdevelopment and system integration. DDS specifies an API designed forenabling real-time data distribution. It uses a publish-subscribecommunication model and supports both messaging and data-object centricdata models. DDS offers several enhanced capabilities with respect tocontent-based filtering and transformation, per dataflow connectivitymonitoring, redundancy, replication, delivery effort and ordering, aswell as spontaneous discovery. Furthermore, DDS offers new capabilitieswith respect to data-object lifecycle management, best-effort andpredictable delivery, delivery ordering, resource management, and statusnotifications.

RCM framework 305 provides core services (SOA) (service orientedarchitecture) for communications among applications running on 203applications with enterprise SOA or spread across multiple real timebased operating systems and processors SOA based applications running onthe present system. RCM framework 305 uses communications (IPC 303)through distributed messaging passing or data centric DDS baseddistributed messages communication to provide SOA services to differentmulti-core clusters in system. It is OS, platform and interconnectindependent, transparent to system scale and can reconfigure withoutmodifying codes.

System framework 308 includes local hardware multi-core clusters andresource scheduler and management, provisioning, configuring, relocationand remote access. The multiple real-time OS configuration can supportAMP (asymmetric real time multi-core multiprocessing; i.e.,heterogeneous processing wherein different operating systems controldifferent hardware clusters), SMP (symmetric real time multi-coremultiprocessing; i.e., homogeneous processing wherein the same type oridentical hardware multi-core clusters run under the same operatingsystem),controlling inter-process communication between operatingsystems, scheduling global resources and management of clusters,handling global and local resource loading, statistics and migration, aswell as providing a virtualization infrastructure interface andmanagement of multi-core clusters.

IP-based network applications can be partitioned into three basicelements: data plane, control plane and management plane.

The data plane is a subsystem of a network node that receives and sendspackets from an interface, processes them in some way required by theapplicable protocol, and delivers, drops, or forwards them asappropriate. For routing functions, it consists of a set of procedures(algorithms) that a router uses to make a forwarding decision on apacket. The algorithms define the information from a received packet tofind a particular entry in its forwarding table, as well as the exactprocedures that the routing function uses for finding the entry. Itoffloads packet forwarding from higher-level processors. For most or allof the packets it receives and that are not addressed for delivery tothe node itself, it performs all required processing. Similarly, forIPSec functions, a security gateway checks if a Security Association isvalid for an incoming flow and if so, the data plane locally findsinformation to apply Security Association to a packet.

The control plane maintains information that can be used to change dataused by the data plane. Maintaining this information requires handlingcomplex signaling protocols. Implementing these protocols in data planewould lead to poor forwarding performance. A common way to manage theseprotocols is to let the data plane detect incoming signaling packets andlocally forward them to control plane. Control plane signaling protocolscan update data plane information and inject outgoing signaling packetsin data plane. This architecture works because signaling traffic is avery small part of the global traffic. For routing functions, thecontrol plane consists of one or more routing protocols that provideexchange of routing information between routers, as well as theprocedures (algorithms) that a router uses to convert this informationinto the forwarding table. As soon as the data plane detects a routingpacket, it forwards it to the control plane to let routing protocolcompute new routes, add or delete routes. Forwarding tables are updatedwith this new information. When a routing protocol has to send a packet,it is injected in the data plane to be sent in the outgoing flow. ForIPSec security functions, signaling protocols for key exchangemanagement such as IKE or IKEv2 are located in the control plane.Incoming IKE packets are locally forwarded to control plane. When keysare renewed, Security Associations located in the data plane are updatedby control plane. Outgoing IKE packets are injected in the data plane tobe sent in the outgoing flow.

To provide a complete solution for next generation network applications,network packet processing today is much more complex when compared to asimple TCP/IP stack at the inception of the Internet. Refer to thedescription herein for the definition of control plane and data plane.High speed processing handles simple processing in a fast path or dataplane. The software stack is running on the data plane which is done bymultiple CPU cores to handle the data plane tasks. Complex processing isdelegated to the slow path and control plane. The fast path typically isexpected to integrate a large number of protocols and be designed sothat adding a new protocol will not penalize the performance of thewhole system.

A common network use case is made of VPN/IPSec tunnels and thataggregates Gbps of HTTP, video and audio streams. Since the L3/L7protocols are encrypted, a data plane design which is only made of flowaffinities cannot assign a specific core to each of them. It is onlypossible once all the pre-IPSec-processing and decryption of thepayloads are complete. At each level, exceptions can happen if thepacket cannot be handled at the fast path level. Implementing anadditional protocol adds tests in the initial call flow and requiresmore instructions. The overall performance will be lower. However, thereare some software design rules that can lead to an excellent trade-offbetween features and performance.

The management plane provides an administrative interface into theoverall system. It contains processes that support operationaladministration, management or configuration/provisioning actions such asfacilities for supporting statistics collection and aggregation, supportfor the implementation of management protocols, and also provides acommand line interface (CLI) and/or a graphical user configurationinterface, such as via a Web interface or traditional SNMP managementsoftware. More sophisticated solutions based on XML can also beimplemented.

The present system supports rich content multimedia (RCM) applications.Because rich content multimedia applications consume and producetremendous different type of data, it is very important to have adistributed data framework to be able to process, manipulate,transmit/receive, and retrieve/store all various data, for example,data, voice, audio and video today. The present system also supportsother rich data types listed below and is not limited to imaging,pattern recognition, speech recognition and animation. The data type canbe expanded from the basic type format and become a composition datatype of multiple intrinsic data types. Where complex data typetransmission and receiving requires data streams to be compressed intosome certain industry standard or proprietary algorithms beforetransmission, the receiving end point will decompress or reconstruct thedata back into its original data types and that can be done usingreal-time processes.

For example, video data, after being compressed with certain algorithms,can become a different data type, i.e., MPEG4 and H.264. The sameapplies for the audio data. Therefore, certain types of datasynchronization mechanisms are required to support data reconstructionat destination.

In some traditional multimedia systems, the data types are limited bywhat can be efficiently processed. For example, data types might belimited to audio, video or graphics, from a single local content sourceto a single content destination, simple audio/video synchronization, asingle content stream, etc. Typically, applications are mainly decoding,do not operate in real-time, are not interactive, don't have requiresynchronization at the data source, don't have reconstruction at thedata destination, and don't have data type composition or data typeprotection. However using the present system, it can be possible tohandle rich content multimedia (RCM), such as text, audio, video,graphics, animation, speech, pattern recognition, still or moving 2D/3Dimages, AI vision processing, handwriting recognition, securityprocessing, etc. Data can be from multiple remote or local contentsources and be for multiple remote or local content destinations.Content synchronization can be from various combinations ofaudio/video/data from multiple sources, with multiple content streams.Applications can encode and decode and can run in real-time,interactively, with synchronization at the data source, reconstructionat the data destination, and data type composition or data typeprotection.

Within a network-centric computing model, a daunting challenge ismanaging the distributed data and facilitating localized management ofthat data. An architectural approach that addresses these requirementsis commonly referred to as the distributed database framework 309. Thebenefit of the distributed database model is that it guaranteescontinuous real-time availability of all information critical to theenterprise, and facilitates the design of location transparent software,which directly impacts software module reuse.

Software applications gain reliable, instant access across dynamicnetworks to information that changes in real-time. The architectureuniquely integrates peer-to-peer Data Distribution Service networking,and real-time, in-memory database management systems (DBMS) into acomplete solution that manages storage, retrieval, and distribution offast changing data in dynamically configured network environments. Itguarantees continuous availability in real-time of all information thatis critical to the enterprise. DDS technology is employed to enable atruly decentralized data structure for distributed database managementwhile DBMS technology is used to provide persistence for real-time DDSdata.

According to one embodiment, embedded applications do not need to knowSQL or OBDC semantics and enterprise applications are not forced to knowpublish-subscribe semantics. Thus, the database becomes an aggregate ofthe data tables distributed throughout the system.

When a node updates a table by executing a SQL INSERT, UPDATE, or DELETEstatement on the table, the update is proactively pushed to other hoststhat require local access to the same table via real-timepublish-subscribe messaging. This architectural approach enablesreal-time replication of any number of remote data tables.

FIG. 4 illustrates an exemplary hardware infrastructure for use with thepresent system, according to one embodiment. A host 406 is incommunication with various clusters via a host and memory interface 401.In FIG. 1, the host might be system 101 without system 102. The hostcan, in general, refer to a standard server platform. The host commonlyhas multi-core cluster and multi-tasking OS to control. The hardwareinfrastructure includes clusters of one or more multi-core processingelements (PEs) running the real-time operating system and applications,PE1 402, PE2 403, PE3, 405, and PE4 404. Processing elements communicatethrough inter-process communication 407. The examples of host multi-corecluster (406) can refer to x86 multi-core cluster from Intel and AMD,PowerPC multi-core cluster from IBM and its licensed companies, ARMmulti-core cluster and its licensed companies. The examples ofmultitasking OS can refer to Windows, Linux and Unix from variouscompanies.

To integrate the description of the exemplary hardware infrastructure,we refer back to the hardware blade described above. Each hardware bladecan include a cluster of, for example, FreescaleQorIQ 4080 (has 8 CPUsinside one IC package) or more clusters depending on the package densityof hardware blade. In general, one FreescaleQorIQ 4080 (as an example)cluster corresponds to one cluster of processing elements of hardwareinfrastructure in FIG. 4 (e.g., PE1 . . . PE18).

If two hardware blades are installed and each blade has the same type ofmulti-core cluster (e.g., FreescaleQorIQ 4080), it is called homogeneousexpansion. In another embodiment, the hardware blade has the capacity toinclude more than one cluster in one blade.

If two hardware blades are installed and the first blade hasFreescaleQorIQ 4080 and the second blade has Cavium Network clusterOCTEON II CN68XX, the Freescale cluster corresponds to PE1 . . . PE18and the Cavium cluster corresponds to PE2 . . . PE216 (assuming the useof 16 cores). The two hardware blades have non-identical multi-coreclusters and it is called heterogeneous expansion.

Host 406 is a standard server, representing an x86 based cluster. It canperform server applications. For example, it can represent applicationsserver, web server or database server. It can run all general purposeapplications, I/O function and network function services and calls andother system related tasks for OS.

FIG. 5 illustrates an exemplary hardware infrastructure implementationfor use with the present system, according to one embodiment. A host 506is in communication with various clusters via a host and memoryinterface 501. The hardware infrastructure includes clusters of one ormore processing elements running the same operating system andapplication. In this example, PE1 is an audio engine running three audiostreams 502, PE2 is a security engine 503, PE3 is a video encode engine505, and PE4 is a video decode engine 504 running two video streams.Processing elements communicate through inter-process communication 507and have a shared memory 508.

FIG. 6 illustrates an exemplary system level layout with virtualizationsupport for use with the present system, according to one embodiment. Anapplication server 601 includes one or more virtual hosts, which arevirtualized as virtual machines, called virtual hosts 610 and 611.Virtual hosts 610 and 611 are virtual machines (VM) including operatingsystems (OS) and applications (App). Middleware 612 communicates withthe VCSS 602 and a hypervisor 609 and real-time hypervisor 604 handleresource scheduling and allocation. The server 601 is running a virtualmachine on multi-core cluster 608 and requesting for packet and/orsecurity application processing. The multi-core cluster 608 communicateswith a network interface cards (NIC) 607 or via PCI-e backplane 606. Thenetwork interface cards (NIC) 607 provides network 615 access. VCSS 602includes a hardware blade having a multi-core cluster 605(HW/Multi-Core), a real-time hypervisor 604 for scheduling andallocating resources, an interface with virtual machine support 603, andseveral security virtual machine functions (SF1, SF2, . . . , SFn) 613and packet processing virtual machine functions (PKT1, PKT2, . . . ,PKTn) 614.

Hypervisor 609, also referred to as a virtual machine manager (VMM),allows multiple operating systems, termed guests, to run concurrently ona host computer. It is so named because it is conceptually one levelhigher than a supervisory program. The hypervisor presents to the guestoperating systems a virtual operating platform and manages the executionof the guest operating systems. Multiple instances of a variety ofoperating systems may share the virtualized hardware resources.Hypervisors are installed on server hardware whose task is to run guestoperating systems. Non-hypervisor virtualization systems are used forsimilar tasks on dedicated server hardware, but also commonly ondesktop, portable and even handheld computers.

Examples of a host hypervisor 609 include products offered by VMware,Citrix and Microsoft.

Embedded hypervisor 604 is a real time based hypervisor. The embeddedhypervisor is used in the real-time embedded virtualization. It allowsdevelopers to leverage multiple real-time operating systems in a singledevice so they can expand and enhance device functionality; itfacilitates the adoption of multi-core clusters by increasingreliability and reducing risk; and it provides the new softwareconfiguration options required to architect next-generation embeddeddevices. Examples of embedded hypervisors on the hardware blade includeproducts offered by Windriver and Green Hills Software.

Several security virtual machine functions SF1, SF2, . . . , SFn (613)and packet processing virtual machine functions PKT1, PKT2, . . . , PKTn(614) and all other real time based virtual machines are sharing theHW/multi-core cluster 605. Since they are in software instances form,they can be stored in the local memory in HW/multi-core cluster 605during the idle state and activated by the embedded hypervisor 604. Inaddition, the hypervisor 609 running in the application server 601 canactivate the SF1 . . . SFn or PKT1 . . . PKTn virtual machines on behalfof the virtual machines running 610 and/or 611. When virtual machine 611or 610 requires the functions of network 615 access to and from NIC 607,the middleware 612 converts the service requests for the interface 603.After interface 603 receives the requests, it invokes the PKT1 . . .PKTn (614) to service the network access request. Same situation appliesto security virtual machines SF1 . . . SFn (613). If virtual machine 611or 610 requires the services of security functions, the middleware 612converts the request for the interface 603. Interface 603 then reactslike a server to serve the security requests by invoking virtualmachines SF1 or SF2 . . . SFn. Once services are completed, the resultsare returned to virtual machine 611 or 610 through 612. An applicationserver VCSS (601) can be further expanded as by items (604) and (605)into multi-core clusters according to one embodiment listed above. SF1 .. . SFn or PKT1 . . . PKTn virtual machines can be also further expandedto other real-time virtual machines for RCM applications listed above.

According to one embodiment, a cloud based architecture provides a modelfor cloud security consisting of a service oriented architecture (SOA)security layer that resides on top of a secure virtualized runtimelayer. A cloud delivered services layer is a complex, distributed SOAenvironment. Different services are spread across different cloudswithin an enterprise. The services can reside in differentadministrative or security domains that connect together to form asingle cloud application. An SOA security model fully applies to thecloud. A web services (WS) protocol stack forms the basis for SOAsecurity and, therefore, also for cloud security.

One aspect of an SOA is the ability to easily integrate differentservices from different providers. Cloud computing is pushing this modelone step further than most enterprise SOA environments, since a cloudsometimes supports a very large number of tenants, services andstandards. This support is provided in a highly dynamic and agilefashion, and under very complex trust relationships. In particular, acloud SOA sometimes supports a large and open user population, and itcannot assume an established relationship between a cloud provider and asubscriber.

It should be understood by one having ordinary skill in the art that thepresent system is not limited to an implementation having the presentlydisclosed multi-core cluster configuration and that embodimentsincluding any appropriate substitute achieve the present objective.

It should be understood by one having ordinary skill in the art that thepresent system is not limited to an implementation having securitysoftware applications, and that embodiments including audiocompression/decompression, video compression/decompression, imagingcompression/decompression, speech compression/decompression or anyappropriate substitute of RCM (rich content multimedia) to achieve thepresent objective.

In the description above, for purposes of explanation only, specificnomenclature is set forth to provide a thorough understanding of thepresent disclosure. However, it will be apparent to one skilled in theart that these specific details are not required to practice theteachings of the present disclosure.

Some portions of the detailed descriptions herein are presented in termsof algorithms and symbolic representations of operations on data bitswithin a computer memory. These algorithmic descriptions andrepresentations are the means used by those skilled in the dataprocessing arts to most effectively convey the substance of their workto others skilled in the art. An algorithm is here, and generally,conceived to be a self-consistent sequence of steps leading to a desiredresult. The steps are those requiring physical manipulations of physicalquantities. Usually, though not necessarily, these quantities take theform of electrical or magnetic signals capable of being stored,transferred, combined, compared, and otherwise manipulated. It hasproven convenient at times, principally for reasons of common usage, torefer to these signals as bits, values, elements, symbols, characters,terms, numbers, or the like.

It should be borne in mind, however, that all of these and similar termsare to be associated with the appropriate physical quantities and aremerely convenient labels applied to these quantities. Unlessspecifically stated otherwise as apparent from the below discussion, itis appreciated that throughout the description, discussions utilizingterms such as “processing” or “computing” or “calculating” or“determining” or “displaying” or the like, refer to the action andprocesses of a computer system, or similar electronic computing device,that manipulates and transforms data represented as physical(electronic) quantities within the computer system's registers andmemories into other data similarly represented as physical quantitieswithin the computer system memories or registers or other suchinformation storage, transmission or display devices.

The present disclosure also relates to an apparatus for performing theoperations herein. This apparatus may be specially constructed for therequired purposes, or it may comprise a general purpose computerselectively activated or reconfigured by a computer program stored inthe computer. Such a computer program may be stored in a computerreadable storage medium, such as, but is not limited to, any type ofdisk, including floppy disks, optical disks, CD-ROMs, andmagnetic-optical disks, read-only memories (ROMs), random accessmemories (RAMs), EPROMs, EEPROMs, magnetic or optical cards, or any typeof media suitable for storing electronic instructions, and each coupledto a computer system bus.

The algorithms presented herein are not inherently related to anyparticular computer or other apparatus. Various general purpose systems,computer servers, or personal computers may be used with programs inaccordance with the teachings herein, or it may prove convenient toconstruct a more specialized apparatus to perform the required methodsteps. The required structure for a variety of these systems will appearfrom the description below. It will be appreciated that a variety ofprogramming languages may be used to implement the teachings of thedisclosure as described herein.

Moreover, the various features of the representative examples and thedependent claims may be combined in ways that are not specifically andexplicitly enumerated in order to provide additional useful embodimentsof the present teachings. It is also expressly noted that all valueranges or indications of groups of entities disclose every possibleintermediate value or intermediate entity for the purpose of originaldisclosure, as well as for the purpose of restricting the claimedsubject matter. It is also expressly noted that the dimensions and theshapes of the components shown in the figures are designed to help tounderstand how the present teachings are practiced, but not intended tolimit the dimensions and the shapes shown in the examples.

A system and method for virtualization and cloud security are disclosed.Although various embodiments have been described with respect tospecific examples and subsystems, it will be apparent to those ofordinary skill in the art that the concepts disclosed herein are notlimited to these specific examples or subsystems but extends to otherembodiments as well. Included within the scope of these concepts are allof these other embodiments as specified in the claims that follow.

We claim:
 1. A system, comprising: a first set of multi-core processingclusters physically coupled to a hardware backplane, the first set ofmulti-core processing clusters comprising one or more first hardwareclusters with identical first instruction sets, the first set ofmulti-core processing clusters configured to run a multitaskingoperating system and execute software instructions under themultitasking operating system; a second set of multi-core processingclusters physically coupled to the hardware backplane, the second set ofmulti-core processing clusters and the first set of multi-coreprocessing clusters capable of communication via the hardware backplane,the second set of multi-core processing clusters comprising one or moresecond hardware clusters with identical second instruction sets, theidentical second instructions sets different from the identical firstinstruction sets, the second set of multi-core processing clustersconfigured to run a real-time operating system, the real time operatingsystem configured to execute the software instructions under thereal-time operating system; a first set of software agents configured toexecute under the real-time operating system to (i) receive multiplereal-time processing requests in response to execution of at least aportion of the software instructions under the real-time operatingsystem, the multiple real-time processing requests intercepted fromservicing on the first multi-core processing cluster by a second set ofsoftware agents executing under the multitasking operating system, (ii)service the multiple real-time processing requests, and (iii) returnresults of the servicing to the second set of software agents via thehardware backplane inter process communication link; softwareapplication layer server agents and network socket agents executing inthe second set of multi-core processing clusters and serving multipleservices from a request of middleware client agents and middlewaresockets executing in the first set of multi-core processing clusters;wherein the middleware sockets and the middleware client agentscommunicate with the software application layer server agents and thenetwork socket agents via the hardware backplane inter for execution ofone or more services, software applications, or virtual machines inreal-time software stacks of the second set of multi-core processingclusters or virtual machine stacks of the second set of multi-coreprocessing clusters, and wherein the execution results of the one ormore services, software applications, or virtual machines are sent backto the middleware client agents and the middleware sockets via thehardware.
 2. The system of claim 1, further comprising one or morereal-time hypervisors configured to coordinate multiple instruction setsof multi-core processing clusters to allocate multiple real-time virtualmachines for services by intercepting requests of the first set ofmulti-core processing clusters using the second set of software agentsand return execution results of the multiple real-time virtual machinesusing the first set of software agents to the first set of multi-coreprocessing clusters requests via the hardware backplane.
 3. The systemof claim 1, wherein the first set of multi-core processing clusters aremanaged by multitasking hypervisors, and the second set of multi-coreprocessing clusters are managed by real-time operating systems or byreal-time hypervisors.
 4. The system of claim 1, further comprising: thesoftware application layer server agents and the network socket agentsserving new real-time applications or new real-time virtual machinessent by the middleware client agents and the middleware sockets, any ofthe middleware socket or the middleware client agents communicating withthe software application layer server agents and the network socketagents for execution of the new real-time applications or the newvirtual machines in more than one real-time software stacks or virtualmachine stacks in the second set of multi-core processing clusters; andwherein the execution results of the new services, the new applicationsor the new virtual machines are sent back to the middleware clientagents and the middleware sockets in the first set of multi-coreprocessing clusters via the hardware backplane.
 5. The system of claim1, wherein the execution of the software applications in the real-timesoftware stacks, or the execution of the virtual machines in thereal-time virtual machine stacks, can further include one or more setsof control and/or data plane software stacks executing one or more setsof real-time software applications or virtual machines including any ofpacket processing functions, application throttling functions, codeanalysis functions, load balancer functions between L4 and L7, trafficpolicies and shaping functions, QoS functions, VLAN functions, LinkAggregation functions, GRE encapsulation functions, GTP and IP over IPtunneling functions, Layer 3 forwarding with virtual routing managementfunctions, routing and virtual routing and Filtering (ACLs) softwarefunctions.
 6. The system of claim 1, further comprising: real-timesoftware applications or virtual machine software, stored in memories orcomputer readable storage mediums, wherein the real-time softwareapplications or virtual machine software are executed in one or moresets of security software stacks or virtual machines software stacks inthe second set of multi-core processing clusters; one or more sets ofcontrol and/or data plane software stacks executing one or more sets ofsoftware applications or virtual machines including any of: securityfunctions, stateful firewalls with network address translationfunctions, IPSec VPN functions, SSLVPN functions, intrusion detectionfunctions, intrusion prevention functions, anti-virus functions,anti-spyware functions, and application firewalls HTTP or SIP functions.7. The system of claim 1, wherein the second set of multi-coreprocessing clusters comprises a plurality of distinct instruction setsof hardware clusters and a plurality of distinct type of real-timesoftware application stacks, with at least two distinct instruction setsof hardware clusters optimized for distinct type of real-time softwareapplication stacks executing for distinct type of real-time applicationsor virtual machines.
 8. The system of claim 7, wherein the distinct typeof real-time application software stacks with distinct type ofapplications or virtual machines executing comprise one or more sets ofimage processing application, cryptographic processing application,video compression processing application, video decompression processingapplication, and pattern recognition processing application.
 9. Thesystem of claim 7, wherein the second set of multi-core processingclusters further comprises a plurality of distinct instruction sets anda plurality of distinct application software stacks for softwareapplication execution and virtual machines, the identical firstinstruction sets including a plurality of hardware clusters and morethan one application software stack for software applications or virtualmachines execution.
 10. A method comprising: executing softwareinstructions in first multi-core processing clusters under control ofmultitasking operating systems, each of the first multi-core processingclusters comprising one or more hardware clusters with identical firstinstruction sets, each of the first multi-core processing clustersconfigured to run an identical one of the multitasking operating systemsand execute the software instructions under a respective one of themultitasking operating systems, each of the first multi-core processingclusters physically coupled to a hardware backplane; executing thesoftware instructions in second multi-core processing clusters undercontrol of real-time operating systems, each of the second multi-coreprocessing clusters comprising one or more hardware clusters havingassociated identical second instruction sets, the identical secondinstruction sets being different from the identical first instructionssets, each of the second multi-core processing clusters configured torun one of the real-time operating systems and execute the softwareinstructions under a respective one of the real-time operating systems,each of the second multi-core processing clusters physically coupled tothe hardware backplane, the first multi-core processing clusters and thesecond multi-core processing clusters capable of communication via thehardware backplane; executing a first set of software agents in thesecond multi-core processing clusters, the first set of software agentsconfigured to (i) receive multiple real-time function processingrequests in response to execution of at least a portion of the softwareinstructions under the real-time operating systems, the multiplereal-time function processing requests intercepted from servicing on thefirst multi-core processing clusters by a second set of software agentsexecuting in the first multi-core processing clusters (ii) service thereal-time function processing requests, and (iii) return results of theservicing to the second set of software agents executing in the firstmulti-core processing clusters via the hardware backplane executingsoftware application layer server agents and network socket agents inthe second multi-core processing clusters, and serving multiple servicesfrom a request of middleware client agents and middleware socketsexecuting in the first multi-core processing clusters; wherein themiddleware client agents and the middleware sockets communicate with thesoftware application layer server agents and the network socket agentsfor execution of one or more services, applications or virtual machinesin real-time software stacks or virtual machine stacks, and returningthe execution results of the one or more services, applications orvirtual machines to the middleware client agents and the middlewaresockets via the hardware backplane.
 11. The method of claim 10, furthercomprising real-time hypervisors configured to coordinate multipleinstruction sets of the second multi-core processing clusters toallocate multiple virtual machines for services based on interceptingrequests of the first multi-core-processing clusters using the secondset of software agents; and returning execution results of multiplevirtual machines, using the first set of software agents, to the firstmulti-core processing clusters via the hardware backplane.
 12. Themethod of claim 10, wherein the first multi-core processing clusterswith instruction sets are managed by multitasking hypervisors, and thesecond multi-core processing clusters are managed by real-time operatingsystems or by real-time hypervisors.
 13. The method of claim 10, furthercomprising: executing identical or non-identical software applicationlayer server agents and network socket agents in the second multi-coreprocessing clusters; and serving new services, new real-timeapplications, or new virtual machines sent by the middleware clientagents and the middleware sockets to the second multi-core processingclusters executing in the real-time software stacks or the virtualmachine stacks; and returning the execution results of the new services,the new real-time applications, or the new virtual machines from thesecond multi-core processing clusters to the middleware client agentsand the middleware sockets of the first multi-core processing clustersvia the hardware backplane.
 14. The method of claim 13, wherein theexecution of software applications in real-time application softwarestacks or execution of virtual machines in real-time virtual machinestacks include one or more sets of control and/or data plane softwarestacks executing one or more sets of packet processing functions,application throttling functions, code analysis functions, load balancerfunctions between L4 and L7, traffic policies and shaping, QoSfunctions, VLAN functions, Link Aggregation functions, GRE encapsulationfunctions, GTP and IP over IP tunneling functions, Layer 3 forwardingwith virtual routing management functions, routing and virtual routingand Filtering (ACLs) software functions in the second multi-coreprocessing clusters.
 15. The method of claim 14, wherein the softwareapplications or the virtual machines, stored in memories or computerreadable storage mediums, are executing in one or more sets of securitysoftware stacks or virtual machine stacks in the second multi-coreprocessing clusters, can further have one or more set of control and/ordata plane software stacks executing one or more sets of securitysoftware functions, firewall functions, stateful firewall processingwith network address translation, and application firewalls HTTP or SIPfunctions.
 16. The method of claim 15, wherein the software applicationsor the virtual machines stored in memories or computer readable storagemediums running in one or more sets of security software applicationsoftware stacks or virtual machines software stacks, further comprisefunctions and: initiating an IPSec virtual private network functions;executing a SSLVPN functions; handling intrusion detection and/orprevention functions in real-time; executing an anti-virus functions inreal-time; executing an anti-spyware functions in real-time.
 17. Themethod of claim 10, wherein the second multi-core processing clustersfurther comprises a plurality of distinct instruction sets of hardwareclusters and a plurality of distinct type of real-time softwareapplication stacks, with at least two distinct instruction sets ofhardware clusters optimized for distinct type of real-time applicationsoftware stacks executing for distinct type of real-time applications orvirtual machines.
 18. The method of claim 17, wherein the distinct typeof real-time application software stacks with distinct type ofapplications or virtual machines executing comprise one or more sets ofimage processing application, cryptographic processing application,video compression processing application, video decompression processingapplication, and pattern recognition processing application.
 19. Themethod of claim 10, further comprising executing a plurality ofreal-time software applications or virtual machines using the secondmulti-core processing clusters.
 20. A non-transitory computer readablemedium comprising executable instructions, the instructions beingexecutable by a processor to perform a method for contact listaggregation across a plurality of different networks, the methodcomprising: executing software instructions in first multi-coreprocessing clusters under control of multitasking operating systems,each of the first multi-core processing clusters comprising one or morehardware clusters with identical first instruction sets, each of thefirst multi-core processing clusters configured to run an identical oneof the multitasking operating systems and execute the softwareinstructions under a respective one of the multitasking operatingsystems, each of the first multi-core processing clusters physicallycoupled to a hardware backplane; executing the software instructions insecond multi-core processing clusters under control of real-timeoperating systems, each of the second multi-core processing clusterscomprising one or more hardware clusters having associated identicalsecond instruction sets, the identical second instruction sets beingdifferent from the identical first instructions sets, each of the secondmulti-core processing clusters configured to run one of the real-timeoperating systems and execute the software instructions under arespective one of the real-time operating systems, each of the secondmulti-core processing clusters physically coupled to the hardwarebackplane, the first multi-core processing clusters and the secondmulti-core processing clusters capable of communication via the hardwarebackplane; executing a first set of software agents in the secondmulti-core processing clusters, the first set of software agentsconfigured to (i) receive multiple real-time function processingrequests in response to execution of at least a portion of the softwareinstructions under the real-time operating systems, the multiplereal-time function processing requests intercepted from servicing on thefirst multi-core processing clusters by a second set of software agentsexecuting in the first multi-core processing clusters (ii) service thereal-time function processing requests, and (iii) return results of theservicing to the second set of software agents executing in the firstmulti-core processing clusters via the hardware backplane executingsoftware application layer server agents and network socket agents inthe second multi-core processing clusters, and serving multiple servicesfrom a request of middleware client agents and middleware socketsexecuting in the first multi-core processing clusters; wherein themiddleware client agents and the middleware sockets communicate with thesoftware application layer server agents and the network socket agentsfor execution of one or more services, applications or virtual machinesin real-time software stacks or virtual machine stacks, and returningthe execution results of the one or more services, applications orvirtual machines to the middleware client agents and the middlewaresockets via the hardware backplane.